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A Camera With a Phone for a Viewfinder

The Samsung SH100 camera is remotely interesting. That is, the most interesting thing about it is the remote.

The SH100 uses a compatible phone as a viewfinder.

The camera can be connected wirelessly to a Samsung Galaxy S phone and the phone will see everything the camera sees, which will be displayed on the phone’s OLED screen.

But more than just seeing what the camera does, you can control the camera from the phone. You can snap the shutter from the phone, of course, but also operate the zoom, turn the flash on and off and choose between two file sizes.

So what good does this do? It can take the guessing out of group portraits (which you would normally take by setting a timer and running into the frame). And you can put the camera on a monopod (or tape it to a stick) and hold it high overhead to get angles you would not otherwise get without an elaborate setup.

There are professional cameras that work with remote viewfinders, but don’t confuse the SH100 with them. While it’s an unusual feature to get in a $130 street-price camera, the SH100 version isn’t quite pro quality.

The live image shows as a herky-jerky video, so some patience is required to set up your shot. In addition, the camera-to-phone connection can be a little flaky. Samsung said that the app that enables the remote operation would hold a rock-solid connection up to 30 feet and that people have had a connection hold up to 90 feet. But I found that it could also blink out inexplicably when the camera and phone were a foot apart.

The remote feature may also be a problem for people who are security minded, because you have to turn off password security for your phone’s hot spot. At the least that means going into the menu and resetting security twice when you want to use the remote feature.

The camera has a 14 megapixel CCD sensor, three-inch touchscreen controls and a number of automated settings, but no manual controls. The menus are similar to those of the gimmicky Samsung MV800, like wacky filters and frames.

It is tempting to write off the remote viewfinder as just another gimmick, but it will allow you to shoot at some tricky angles you would never otherwise get as easily.

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